Opinion

The Central Kentucky News-Journal will celebrate its 100th birthday this year. In almost 10 decades of service, the newspaper has moved from newcomer to welcomed friend. With a close eye on serving our community, the paper has become a healthy business interest and we owe much of it to our faithful readers.

Much has changed in the past 100 years and as we prepare to head into a new year, you will notice one obvious change on the front page of today's issue.

After competing in numerous national tournaments in many sports in its storied history, Campbellsville University claimed the school's first national team championship when the Lady Tigers captured the National Christian College Athletic Association Volleyball Tournament on Saturday in Kissimmee, Fla.

Coach Randy LeBleu's squad won all six matches in the three-day tourney to bring home the top hardware.

The war in Afghanistan isn't going well. The economic recovery isn't producing many new jobs. The banks that pushed the nation to the brink of a 1930s-style Depression with their reckless ways - having sucked up billions of taxpayer dollars in rescue money - are resuming those reckless ways. There isn't enough swine flu vaccine to go around.

And now for some bad news:

Nielsen, the company that clocks television viewing in this country, has found that children between the ages of 2 and 5 are watching an average of 25 hours of television each week.

The Central Kentucky News-Journal welcomes letters on a variety of topics, including letters about political races and candidates.

We anticipate there will be letters written supporting and possibly criticizing candidates. If you support a candidate, write and tell our readers the reasons why. If there's a candidate you don't particularly like, you can write about that, too.

Use good taste and don't libel anyone. You can say what you believe, but personal attacks or allegations that cannot be verified will not be accepted.

Today is a day officially set aside as a time for gratitude. And those of us who live in Campbellsville and Taylor County have so much for which to be grateful.

Most of us will sit down with family members and friends for a meal that can only be described as a feast. We can also be thankful that we have friends and neighbors and churches who will be there for those who don't have family and friends nearby or for those who don't have the resources to provide their own feasts.

A city official stopped at The Lebanon Enterprise office this week. When staff members joked with her about running for a state office, her reply was no, she wasn't interested.

"That's real politics," she said.

Based on what we've seen so far from the campaigns to fill the vacant District 14 State Senate seat, we're inclined to agree with her. District 14 includes Marion, Mercer, Nelson, Taylor and Washington counties.

Our community does an outstanding job of celebrating and decorating this time of year. School plays, church choirs, parades and celebrations are popping up all around us. All we have to do is pay attention.

With all the activities at hand, we'd be hard pressed not to close our eyes and hear the jingle of sleigh bells and the Ho-Ho-Ho of that bearded gentleman from the north.

But let's not forget the true meaning of Christmas as we make our rounds during this holiday season.

Through the mist and mythical creatures at Campbellsville High School's Hamilton Auditorium on Tuesday night, the crowd was treated to something a bit unusual, something they might have never seen before - a Bunraku puppet show.

Wood and Strings Theatre brought Bunraku puppets to the stage and performed "Out of the Mist ... a Dragon," a tale of a young man's journey of self-discovery.

The production was the second of this year's Central Kentucky Arts Series' season. And it was enjoyed by many.

While Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember and honor military personnel who died in service to their country, Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor those among us who are serving their country today or who have served in the past.

And Wednesday is that day.

When we think of veterans, many of us automatically think of people our grandfather's age. But that's certainly not the case. Many young men and women in their early 20s are now veterans who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Overloaded circuits. Unattended candles. Cooking food left unwatched. All are common causes for house fires. All are so easily preventable.

Next week, local firefighters will begin their annual fire prevention efforts, helping to arm our community's students with the tools they need to prevent fires and how to react in the event of a fire.

On Saturday evening, our community will be filled with witches and pirates, goblins and princesses, not to mention all sorts of strange-looking animals — and just about any other character children’s imaginations can invent.

Halloween is a night of fun for our children. It shouldn’t ever be a night of mischief, danger or evil. And the spooky fun it provides shouldn’t be lost because, like so many things, a few people choose to abuse the occasion.

In today's issue, readers will see five pages devoted to National Business Women's Week in October.

On these pages, there are advertisements in honor of local women in business as well as feature stories about three Taylor County women who do their best to contribute to their community.

This year's stories are about Linda Clark, Jane Wheatley and Karen Patton. Clark owns her own catering business, Wheatley is CEO at Taylor Regional Hospital and Patton renovated a building in downtown and started a day spa and salon.

So far this year, police have responded to 172 domestic violence calls in Taylor County. We are only 288 days into this year, which means that police have visited local homes for this one single reason entirely too many times.

And that’s sad.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, when all of us need to sit up and take notice of the sad state of our society in which people abuse the very ones they profess to love.

Also during this month, officials try their best to get the word out that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Maybe you saw that National Football League players wore pink shoes, pink gloves, pink wristbands and carried pink towels this past week. Major League Baseball players brought pink bats to the plate on Mother's Day. All this is an effort to bring awareness to breast cancer.